


All of You

by crishcrash



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bipolar Disorder, Confrontations, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mania, Medication, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Therapy, Theysbian Kanaya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25344106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crishcrash/pseuds/crishcrash
Summary: Rose has gotten way out of control lately. When it goes too far, what will Kanaya do?
Relationships: Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Kudos: 13





	All of You

**Author's Note:**

> hihihi i havent posted in so long !!! heres a fic ive been working on thats 100000% projection screams in rose kinnie

A mix of the loud music, flashing strobe lights, and sugary alcohol made her head pound and her eyes spin behind their lids. She took another long sip of whatever drink was handed to her while her 19-year-old body struggled to keep up with her mouth. 

_ How did I even end up here?  _ Rose wondered as she tumbled through the crowd to find a place to sit.  _ Where’s my phone? Hah, whatever. _

College was the best and worst time of her life; at that moment, the former. Her bubbly personality while she was in her manic highs made for the best party personality.  _ They love me. I’m finally with my people,  _ Rose thought as she was surrounded by people who haven’t paid a moment’s attention to her. The pulsing of the club music being played in the frat house matched the hyper beating of her heart as she sat in pure, blissed-out, drunken silence.  _ They love me. _

She was so out of her head that she didn’t care to have her phone on her in case a loved one called, didn’t hear the door slam into the wall, leaving a dent. She didn’t hear her name being called over the speakers blaring. But she felt her lover’s touch, pulling her up and slinging her arm over their neck and basically carrying Rose out of the frat party. When their fingertips met her clammy skin, she felt sparks of disappointment transmit in the process. She could make out muffled scolding, but all she could make out distinctly was one question: “How much did you drink?”

That’s all she can remember from last night.

Now she sits, refusing to make eye contact with her savior from mere hours before, sobered by the reality she’s being handed. For a while, they sat in the dorm in complete stillness, Kanaya trying to form the words they needed without being so cutting.

“I adore you, Rose.” They finally breathe out with a sigh. “Please do not think I am yelling. However, this is a very serious problem. You have been out every night, missing assignments and class, forgetting our plans, never being there for your brother… Rose, I am worri-”

“There’s nothing to be worried about, Kanaya!” the words finally bubble up. “I was with people that care about me!”

“Oh really? Who was that last night then? Because I saw NO ONE that you knew.” The tone cut the air like a knife.  _ Well, the peace didn’t last long _ , Kanaya thinks as they scold themself.

Silence from the adjacent girl, feeling small and hungover. 

“That’s what I thought,” Another pause hangs in the air before they open their mouth again. “I know addiction runs in your family, Rosaline. Your mom makes it no secret.”

“Don’t bring my fucking mom into this.”

“I am only stating an observation. You are at a severely high risk.”

_ I’m at a high risk _ , the muttered words repeat in every corner of her mind. 

The overwhelming realization that you are a danger to yourself. The fuzzy feeling - not a nice one - when eyes unfocus and pale hands begin to tremble. 

“Rose?” Kanaya’s voice sounds distant, like Rose is five miles deep in her own head. And really, she is. 

“I really am fucked up, aren’t I?”

Had Kanaya done the wrong thing? No. Could they have been less blunt? Maybe. But Rose needs to hear the full truth, the truth that everyone but her can see.

“You are not a failure, dear. You are flawed, just as I and your brother and everyone else we know. Dave has flaws, Jade has flaws, Jake has flaws, Roxy has flaws. The issue is, one of your flaws is hurting you, to the extent that you haven’t been to class in a week. You haven’t answered Dave’s multiple calls for assistance or sisterly love. This is unlike you. You know it as much as I.”

Tears bubble up beneath the surface of her lower lids while her lip trembles.

“Thanks,” she manages through the shake in her voice. “for, you know, not completely leaving me.”

“Why would I leave you? I love you.”

“I can tell, because I would’ve left me ages ago.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The friend-therapist is now the one in therapy. How hilariously ironic.  _ I can fix everyone’s problems but my own _ , she criticizes herself in her head as she waits for the college therapist to call her name.

Picking at her cuticles, Rose doesn’t seem to care about this entire process. She’s going because she has to, for Kanaya.  _ I don’t need this _ , she thinks,  _ I’m doing it to appease them and leave. Then I can go back to my normal fucking weekends _ .

“Rosaline?” a strange voice calls out. Looking up from her lap, Rose’s eyes meet a stout older gentleman with thick eyeglasses and perfectly straight teeth, donning a blue polo - their school’s color - and office monkey slacks. He smiles at Rose, the only other person in the waiting room, and beckons her over. “I’m Dr. Dan. Nice to meet you, sweetie.”

“You can call me Rose. Rosaline is too long.” She attempts to joke, but her flat affect ruins any semblance of humor.

“Noted.” In silence, they walk through a long grey hallway with doors lining both sides. Reaching the second to last door, Dr. Dan motions for Rose to follow him through the doorway. “Step on in!”

The room is very far from what the hallway looked like. Rose had dreaded this hour-long session between four dingy off-white walls, but Dr. Dan has decorated with splashes of color everywhere. Child’s toys line his floor and he pushes them gently to the side to make way for her. In the middle of the room was a long desk, full of papers and empty coffee mugs, and a blue two-seater couch. Hesitantly, Rose takes her seat, wondering just how bad this may really be.

“So honey,” Dr. Dan speaks as he wanders over to his desk. He doesn’t make eye contact yet as he shuffles through paperwork for her to sign, which Rose is appreciative of. “What’s brought you in today?”

“Well, I don’t like, have any mental illnesses or anything…” Rose is already defensive. “I’m just here because my partner and my friends are worried for me.”

“Hmmm…” Dr. Dan finally sits down, sliding paperwork over to Rose. “And before I ask why, let’s go over some ground rules and privacy paperwork, shall we?”

Rose was glad for the distraction. However, it was very short lived. After listening to him prattle off the same informed consent to treatment speech he gives every new patient, they were back on her.

“So, now that we got the legal out of the way, why are your loved one’s concerned for you?” He pushes his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose before stacking the papers and putting them on his pile.

“Um, well I kind of drink a lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

Rose tries to go back in her memories and calculate the month’s days. “I’d say, like, every week sometimes?”

“How many times a week?”

_ Yikes. _ “Maybe five.”

He writes something down on the notepad on his desk. 

“Does it ever make you miss class?”

“Yeah.”

More writing.

“And how much do you usually drink?”

“Enough to be drunk, and definitely enough to be, um, hungover.”

“Do you see this as a problem?”

Rose has to think about that one.  _ Do I think it’s a problem? _

“Well, I don’t always drink!”  _ Goddamn with the defense again. _

“So it isn’t consistent?”

“Not really, no. I’ll go weeks without drinking and be okay, not want to, honestly I feel depressed but I don’t think it’s because I’m not drinking it just so happens that I’m depressed,” Rose begins to ramble. “ But then I’ll go a week or two where I’m drinking, I’m smoking, I’m crazy. Nothing about me really is consistent, now that I think about it more.”

As she rambles on about her habits and their fluctuations, Dr. Dan is furiously writing in his notepad. Rose can’t see anything except for one thing: a word that starts with B and ended in a big, huge question mark. She didn’t even notice the time when she finally stopped and Dr. Dan began to give her his breakdown spiel.

“I see. Well Rose, I’m glad you’ve come to me. I hope that these sessions are for you, and not just for your partner or your loved ones. You need to want to change.”

Stepping out of the room after saying goodbye, those words echoed in her head.

_ You need to want to change. _

\-------------------------------------------- MONTHS LATER ----------------------------------------

Another Thursday, another visit to Dr. Dan’s office. At this point, Rose considers it her second home. The walls hold comfort and his smile holds familiarity. She’s still struggling, but as of July, Rose has been sober for 3 months! All thanks to the man in front of her, and the person, her rock, that made her start to begin with, Kanaya.

At this point, Dr. Dan’s couch might as well have a permanent indent where Rose always sits: in the left corner, criss crossed legs, holding one of the decorative pillows to her chest. She feels safety and normalcy, a routine every week. A healthy habit to replace the old.

But Dan’s voice is much different today. Serious, and Rose feels cold.

“So, Rose,” Dan utters out finally. “We have been in sessions together for a while now.”

Rose nods, hesitantly.

“It’s under my impression that you’ve experienced a lot of mood switches from hyper and sociable to depressed and low, correct?”

Another nod. Right now, actually, she was in a depressive state. She misses the days where she was that energetic and outgoing, and recently she could barely get out of bed.

“I won’t ask if you know what this is, because you’re a very intelligent woman, but have you ever considered the possibility that you might have bipolar disorder?”

Bipolar disorder? No, it doesn’t make sense.  _ This is normal, isn’t it? _

“You’re telling me everyone doesn’t feel this way?”

“No, Rose. At least, under my guidance and watch, I’ve noticed manic and depressive behaviors that people without mental health issues do not deal with.”

She blinks. Then blinks once more.  _ What? _

“I know it’s a lot to take in, and we can talk about other things and come back to this later if you’d like, but I believe you have bipolar disorder.”

And so they talk. For the full hour, it was mostly Dr. Dan talking about all the things Rose had never made connections to. Weeks on end where she has so much energy she can’t sleep, can’t eat, talks a mile a minute, and parties like it’s the end of the world. Followed by staying in bed and isolating, depression meals, and suicidal thoughts.

“So what do I do?”

“Well, my plan of action, if you’re comfortable, was to get you set up on mood stabilizers. Does that sound okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Rose mutters. “Yeah, anything to help.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abilify in hand, Rose walks out of the pharmacy after her therapist’s appointment. Still in total shock. Her walk back to the dorm and through the door felt robotic, not like muscle memory but more like a survival instinct.

When she opens the door, she sees the love of her life waiting inside, on the opposite bunk. Doing their makeup at 7 pm, for no particular reason other than that they love to do it. Putting on their forest green lip gloss with a compact mirror in the other hand.  _ Beautiful. _

“How was therapy, dear? What took you so long to get home?” 

Rose approaches, still feeling like a new person in the same old body, like a vagrant in her own mind, and drops the prescription in their bed.

“I’m bipolar.” A smooth, even, robotic voice. Stunned. 

“You got diagnosed with bipolar?”

The third dazed nod of the day.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing? Rose, we finally know how we can help you! We finally have a word for what you feel!”

“I feel fucking crazy.” She mumbles as she walks over to her side of the room and flops right on top of her bed. “I’m a goddamn freak.”

“Honey…” Kanaya trails off. What do they even say in a moment like this? She finds her words once more.

“Honey, you aren’t either of those things. Those are stereotypes of your mental illness that don’t accurately reflect you.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” she deadpans. Kanaya grinds their teeth and bears the bratty comment for sake of knowing it’s only because Rose is in severe shock and is appalled over her newly diagnosed brain.

Kanaya hops off their lofted bed and makes their way over to Rose’s unlofted one beside it. Climbing in next to her, she holds out her arms. “Please come here.”

Without hesitation, Rose clambers into her partner’s arms and lies her head against their heart.

“I promise. Anything that you’re thinking right now is your head being incredibly rude.”

“I feel like such a burden.” Rose fights back tears. Pointlessly, at that, because they come out anyway. “I mean, I scared you for so long when I was manic, and I’m not a joy to be around when I’m depressed and, I can’t even control it, and-”

“Rosaline.”

“Kanaya.”

What did they want to say again?

Oh yeah.

“I love you endlessly.” That’s the ticket, as Jake would say. “Nothing, no matter how inconvenient it might be to me, would ever, EVER tear me away from you. I care about your growth, your health, your wellbeing. I am not thinking about how “crazy” you are, how much this burdens me, which it doesn’t, how you have hurt me, which you haven’t, at least not with your illness. I am not concerned about those things. I’m concerned about getting you healthy. I’m ready to do what you need to stay safe. Never touch alcohol around you again? Deal. Avoid situations that might trigger you? Of course. Anything. You name it.”

Rose opens her mouth amidst her tears to talk, but they continue.

“I care about you. I care about all of you. Manic you, depressed you, regulated you, happy you, sad you, smiling you, despondent you. You while we’re in the room and you’re knitting me a scarf, you when you’re asleep and you can’t see how peaceful you look, you when you’re writing your fiction and your tongue sticks out of the side of your mouth, you when you first wake up and your hair is a bird’s nest. All of you, Rose Lalonde.”


End file.
